Hauptmann in Purgatory: A Creative Examination of Richard Bruno Hauptmann's Trial and Execution in the 1935 Lindbergh Case

Abstract

On March 2, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr., son of the famous American aviator Charles Lindbergh, was kidnapped from his second story nursery at his New Jersey home, Hopewell. Nothing remained of the child except a ransom note left on the windowsill, demanding $50,000. The infant's kidnapping spurred the nation into a mad scramble to recover the child and catch the kidnapper. Yet four months later when the baby’s body was discovered in a shallow grave, it became a manhunt for the "Little Eagle's" murderer. Nearly two years elapsed until the arrest of Richard Bruno Hauptmann, a German carpenter from the Bronx, New York. He was brought to trial in 1935, convicted, and executed by electrocution in 1936. Yet Hauptmann did not receive a fair trial. His conviction was the product of several factors: faulty evidence, bungled police work, personal agendas, the celebrity of the Lindbergh's, his German background, and the voracious appetite of the press.